Integrity

DISCLAIMER: I’m not aiming this at any one person anywhere, so I will not engage in a snippy online firestorm if someone claims to feel “attacked.”I greatly respect those individuals who stick their necks out with original designs and weather the onslaught of comments and demands for tweaks and revisions and help.

I write this post at my own peril. But it’s time to get it off my chest.

Not surprisingly, I have an affinity for the happy little owl cables first brought to popular light (to my knowledge, and feel free to correct me) by Penny Straker. They can be applied just about anywhere. Fine. And some people have come up with contemporary new applications, like o w l s and the companion owlet. Brilliant. Or Give a Hoot! , which features some fun and pretty thumb construction. Nice.

BUT:

Applying this cable (or substitute name for a like embellishment) to another pattern and calling it your “design” does not make you a designer. In fact, it doesn’t make it your design.

I readily recognize that mods to an existing pattern may be faved by many, who may ask you to write it down. And yes, to register as a designer on ravelry is one mechanism for this. And if you should publish your modified design providing full credit and attribution to the original designer, then I salute you.

But if you did not — if you merely substituted or placed a cable on someone else’s design — I suggest you put your mods in your project notes and on your blogs for others who wish to follow them. There are enough discussion threads/helpful notes stickies/tags to find them.

Did you labor over the gauge, stitch counts and sizing? Did you draw a schematic? Did you have friends test-knit and proof-read and tech-edit?

I thought not.

While I premise this vent over the subject of owls, they are but a microcosm of what’s out there in the explosion of self-publishing via Internet. Substitute “leaf” or “butterfly” or whatever object you choose.

The issue is the same.

Please have some integrity.

I feel better now.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled day, while I abruptly switch gears and send very warm thoughts to the wonderful kate davies and dear SandyT.

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This entry was posted on February 23, 2010 at 12:52 pm and is filed under knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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